Malfoy's New Clothes
by Hazuzu
Summary: Draco returns to Hogwarts to finish his seventh year and finds himself a pariah. A helping hand is reluctantly offered.


This is a gift for the lovely ViolaMoon.

**Warning:** Contains Malfoy.

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/End of Author's Notes/

* * *

The Hogwarts Express was colder than it had ever been. Even Dementors couldn't have matched the frosty glares on Draco's back, as he trudged through the once-welcoming corridor of the train and sought a booth that wouldn't welcome him with hostility.

It turned out that the only booth matching that description was an empty one. He grunted as he packed his trunk away and rested his head on the glass to watch the world roll by. It wasn't like he had never been alone before, forced to think through everything with only the company of his own head, but at least he'd had the appearance of comfort and company.

Crabbe and Goyle would have babbled about whatever nonsense they thought was important, but they were… well, one was ash and the other wanted nothing to do with him. Even Pansy Parkinson, who'd stroke his hair for some reason, didn't want anything to do with him. She'd spotted him, glared, and went on with filling someone else's ears with her whining.

But Draco Malfoy was fine. He still had his wits. His wealth. His parents, which not many children of Death Eaters could claim. He would manage, whether he was infamous or not.

He got bored of watching the scenery before so much as an hour had passed and resorted to studying his textbooks. They were as boring as ever, especially since the Dark Arts felt sour in his head. Once, he'd liked to investigate them out of some kind of morbid curiosity. The Hand of Glory, curses, hexes, they had all seemed so fascinating when they were hypothetical. Even the Death Eaters had held a kind of mystique until he joined them.

Now, whenever he thought about dark magic, he remembered how people spoke about Katie Bell. How Crabbe had ended up burning himself to death. How Granger's screams echoed through his family home and all he could do was bury his face in his hands and hope they would stop.

Even the Trolley Lady hadn't popped her head in to offer him some sweets. Part of him resented her for that. He deserved a bit of chocolate just as much as anyone else. Or perhaps he didn't. Wasn't he a victim, too?

Draco muttered a curse to himself and turned back to his books. Perhaps the mechanics of a Flying Charm would become interesting after a few thousand words.

The start-of-term feast was meant to be one of the best of the year. The Great Hall was abuzz with chatting students, those returning and those arriving for the first time, plus all of those who were returning after not finishing their seventh year for whatever reason. Had the tables gotten longer? He could have sworn they'd be more packed considering how many were having to take their last year again.

Or maybe it was the bubble of antipathy that seemed to surround him. Oh, there were people, to be certain. But their bodies were angled away from him, their rears parked as far away as possible like he was some kind of leper. Nobody even bothered to ask him to pass the gravy.

Draco had promised himself he wasn't going to glare at anyone. If they avoided him already, that wasn't going to make them any more comfortable or make him feel any better. But he didn't have to be kind, either. That wasn't him; it was never going to be him. But he could be aloof without being cruel, prove that he was there, he was one of them, and there was nothing anyone could do but tolerate it.

That resolve was immediately put to the test when he happened to glance down the hall and spotted the Granger girl sitting at the Gryffindor table. The only member of the Prophet-branded "Golden Trio" who was returning to finish her education and she was surrounded by every kind of student imaginable. Young, old, boys, girls, asking her questions and fawning over her like she'd accomplished something.

Draco swallowed his bile and tore his gaze away. She _had_ accomplished something, along with Potter and Weasley. All three of them had and it was nothing more than immaturity to act like they hadn't. She deserved that acclaim, he told himself, as he viciously forked a plump roast potato.

* * *

Potions was fun. Or tolerable, at least. Draco had always been good at Potions and brewing and watching all the ingredients meld together just how they were meant to. It was specific, it had order, and it felt right. He might not have been able to charm people as he once had, but he could brew a bubble-charm as well as any other student. Classes with Slughorn proved to be something of a reprieve from the barrage of distaste he had to deal with.

Until one day when they were assigned joint Potion-making. The Potion-That-Was-Promised, Slughorn had called it. It was a ritual that involved enough effort that you needed either two practitioners or somebody with four arms -finding another person was usually a lot easier than growing another set of limbs.

There was the usual hustle and bustle of classmates finding someone to work with and Draco felt a fresh dread building in his gut. Everyone found a partner, got started on their Potion, and was making it before so much as two minutes had passed. And there he was, sitting alone with his cauldron, a pariah among his own House.

So he struggled. He tried to light the fire with two sparks at once, by sending one in an arc around him while he sent out the other one. But he couldn't be sure that the fire was the correct fire, because it was fire either way. That was the problem with Potions: You didn't know if you were doing it wrong until the end, and Slughorn had been less generous than Snape had been. Less prone to favoritism… by House, anyway. Individuals got heaps of praise if they had connections, and his family had lost all of theirs.

Draco bit his tongue as he transfigured a thorn into metal and eyed the heart they'd been provided with. It was very valuable, something they couldn't make another of if he messed up, and he had to somehow hold it up with magic while he drove the thorn into it, all while manipulating the potion he was still brewing. He furrowed his brow as he concentrated.

"Would you like some help?" Draco froze at the voice, but his eyes didn't. He saw Hermione standing at his side, with her bushy hair and her eyes that said she knew what she was doing and that she had capital-T Thoughts about it. He'd seen it when she was a Prefect, when another classmate got something wrong, and he never thought he'd be on the receiving end of it.

"Do I look like I need help, Granger?" Malfoy muttered with as much of an icy glare as he could muster.

Hermione surveyed his desk and nodded. "You are the only one without a partner, Malfoy." She said his name with almost as much disdain as he'd said hers. Why did that offend him now, when it hadn't before? "And I thought you could use the help. Would you like some or not?"

"I don't need your help or your pity." Malfoy waved a flippant hand at Hermione.

"Okay." Hermione strolled off to another desk and Draco frowned after her. She wasn't meant to walk away just like that. He was hoping she'd argue a bit, stick her know-it-all nose in, but she'd just… gone.

Fine, then. He didn't need her help; he'd said so himself. So Draco spent the next five minutes casting a stable flying charm on the heart and pierced it with the metal-coated thorn. The blood of the heart spilled over it and he tossed it into his Potion with just a few minutes to spare and a detailed list of instructions to follow.

As it turned out, Slughorn was right: You did need another person. And he had failed.

* * *

Draco scowled at the sky. He'd been waiting for five minutes, but Hermione was still there chatting with a gaggle of younger students about Merlin-knew-what. He'd sought her out after classes were finished, hoping to catch her in the open fields, and been beaten to the punch by schoolmates who were willing to sprint across the grass rather than walk at a leisurely pace. It must be nice not to have to worry about decorum, he thought with a little less sarcasm than he'd expected.

He'd just have to extricate her. Draco smoothed out his robes and strode up to the tree Hermione and her disciples had gathered under and cleared his throat. "Granger."

"No, it's leviOsa, not levioSA," Hermione finished telling a brambly-haired boy to her right and glanced up to see Draco standing there. She greeted him with a thoroughly neutral expression. "Good afternoon, Malfoy. What do you want?"

"I'd like to have a word with you. Would you mind?" he asked, gesturing away from the shade of the tree and to another that would, hopefully, provide a little more privacy.

"Not at all." Hermione closed the textbook on her lap. "In ten minutes. We were about to discuss Millie and Jake's Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson. Would you like to help?"

Draco glanced at all the wary faces on the children. They wouldn't want him there, and Hermione's rejection hadn't left him feeling charitable. "I'm sure you can manage some first-years by yourself. I'll be waiting."

So he walked over to the other tree and counted the minutes, stewing in his bitterness to pass the time. By the time the students dispersed, he could have sworn it was at least twelve minutes later. An intentional discrepancy, something to put him in his place? He wouldn't doubt it. It was the kind of thing he'd do, or else not show up at all.

Fortunately, Hermione strode over as soon as they were gone and slung her bag over her shoulder. "Well?"

"Well, what?" Draco frowned.

"Well, what did you want to talk about?" Hermione asked as she crossed her arms in front of her.

"Ah." Draco nodded and straightened his posture. Here was the hard part; it turned out that a mirror was no match for even one person facing him. "I called you here to apologize," he said, the words alien on his tongue.

Hermione's eyebrows rose. "And what," she said with a voice like ice, "do you think I ought to apologize for, Malfoy?"

"That you..." Malfoy paused. "No,you see, that's not what I meant. I meant that I called you here so that I could apologize to you."

Hermione's eyebrows stayed exactly where they were. "You what?"

"I was rude to you the other day, in Potions class. It was uncalled for. I am sorry." Draco inclined his head. It wasn't quite a bow, but he couldn't bring himself to do anything more.

"I..." Hermione bit her bottom lip for a moment. "I suppose I forgive you. Thank you for apologizing."

Draco allowed himself the tiniest smile. That was easier than he expected. "Good. Can I count on your help with such lessons in the future?" Not only would he have some company for once, but it might also be intelligent company. Crabbe and Goyle were loyal, but they were barely better than an empty seat when it came to companionship.

"I'm sorry?" Hermione's faintly pleasant face turned distinctly dark. "You expect me to help you in class now?"

"Only when I need it." Draco shrugged. "Which won't be often, but for paired ventures, I will need a partner."

"Hmm." Hermione shook her head. "I don't think so. I have better things to be doing than attaching myself to your hip."

"Why?" Draco blinked. He'd been winning just a second ago and now he'd angered her somehow? "I apologized."

"For being rude in one class, yes, you apologized for that." Hermione glanced either way. "But one comment doesn't excuse years of how you've behaved. Towards not just my friends, but to me. Or have you forgotten your favorite word?"

"That has nothing to do with this." Draco held back a sneer. "The Ministry officially forgave my parents and me for what happened."

"I am not the Ministry." Hermione adjusted the strap of her bag with a little more force than was necessary. "You can't get a legal pardon for being a..." She seemed to chew a word. "A bully."

"Why not?" Draco felt indignation rising in his chest. "If it's good enough for the Ministry, it's certainly good enough for some… witch."

Hermione's nostrils flared. "You have constantly harassed people through your time at Hogwarts, Malfoy." She spat the name. "Not only did you harass Harry, Ron, and me, but anyone who crossed your path, whether you thought they were poor or ugly or, as you would often say, Mudbloods. You and your cronies would harass people just because you were bored, you'd make people cry because you had nothing else to do, and you even tried to get poor Hagrid's pets killed and him fired because you got yourself attacked by not following instructions!"

Draco could feel a scowl coming on. "I-"

"Shut up. Those are just the horrible things you've done. Do I need to tell you about the Inquisitorial Squad? What about how you joined the Death Eaters? How you almost got Katie Bell and Ron killed? How even in the end, you were trying to turn Harry over to Voldemort? Perhaps you need to be reminded of how you were there when my friends and I were captured, I was tortured, and you did nothing? Nothing!"

"I..." Draco found it hard to swallow the sudden lump in his throat. "I didn't tell them it was you..."

Hermione caught her breath and shook her head. "I don't care. If you can come up to me, like you just did, and ask to be my friend, then you haven't learned a thing."

Draco could hear his heart in his ears. He had a hundred justifications ready to go. He'd told himself them, he'd told his mirror them, he'd been sure that they'd stand up to scrutiny. But the look in Hermione's eyes made it clear that they would not be good enough. Perhaps they never were.

"Then..." Draco bowed his head. "Teach me. Please."

"Excuse me?"

"Teach me what I can do to make up for it," Draco said softly. "For everything. I don't know how."

"What makes you think I do?" Hermione's voice was softer.

"You've done better thus far. Everyone loves you and you only came to Hogwarts with your brain." Draco sighed. "I had money and my family and friends and I can't take a seat without being glared at. One of us is doing something right and it's apparently not me."

"You're asking me to teach you… how to be nice?" Hermione's mouth hung open.

"In a word, yes."

Draco had never felt more foolish than in the silent seconds that followed. "I suppose I can try."

Draco lifted his head and met her eyes. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Hermione nodded. "Draco Malfoy, my student. I can't even imagine what Ron will think."

Draco's nose scrunched in distaste. "Must you tell him?"

"No. But if you don't want him to know, well...you'll just have to be on your best behavior, won't you?" Hermione smiled.


End file.
